


sick and tired

by essiefied



Category: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, Sickfic, starring Papa Bear!Hobbs, with a side of Exasperated But Has To Put Up With The Mothering Anyway!Shaw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 00:49:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/essiefied/pseuds/essiefied
Summary: Deckard Shaw is fairly convinced that he’s dying.The thought sounds dramatic, even in his own head—but it feels accurate enough, as a third wave of gut-wrenching, bone-breaking pain spasms its way through him.------Shaw is sick. Hobbs is a mother hen. Neither of them are very good at Talking About It.





	sick and tired

**Author's Note:**

> decided to cross-post this one from tumblr.
> 
> I was sick last month, and while laying in my over-dramatic death bed I had the thought of ’in what situation would Shaw realistically allow Hobbs to take care of him if he was sick?’, since I’ve gotten a few asks/prompts for that scenario. (the answer was 'lmao probably never, unless he literally had no other choice.') so I doodled up a little outline, and then promptly lost any desire to write for it. but I came back to it anyways, so here it is.

Deckard Shaw is fairly convinced that he’s dying.

The thought sounds dramatic, even in his own head—but it _feels_ accurate enough, as a third wave of gut-wrenching, bone-breaking pain spasms its way through him.

Deckard stumbles. Presses a hand to his gut, and curls himself over it. Nearly sinks down to a knee while he breathes deep through his nose, and waits, jaw clenched and teeth grinding, for the newest surge to pass.

The pain is just—incredible, really. It’s not like anything he can recall ever feeling before. It crashes through every joint, every muscle, burning and crushing and throbbing all at once; sizzles like fire in his veins, sears through his skull and presses like a hot poker behind his eyes. He remembers Brixton’s torture, back in a brightly lit base in Moscow, harrowing and intense, and thinks that maybe, _probably,_ he’d wish himself back into that little metal chair if he could.

If it’d let him escape _this._

Shaw presses his mouth against the leather of the sleeve of his jacket and bites desperately into it, to muffle the shout that sits at the back of his throat.

It’s agonizing, standing there, letting the sensation rip through him, waiting out the flood of it. He wants to punch his fist into the stone wall next to him, break his knuckles against the concrete, tear his skin into little ribbons—something, _anything_, to distract himself from it.

But he doesn’t. Shaw just squeezes his fingers into the meat of his thigh and holds on for dear life, counting the seconds as they tick by.

Breathes in through his nose. Out through the mouth.

It doesn’t really help all that much, but the force of habit is hard to ignore.

Slowly, surely, the pain starts to ebb. Centimeter by centi-_fucking_-meter, perhaps, but it goes, winding down into a dull ache that pulses steadily through his bones. Deckard’s indescribably grateful for the reprieve; he can feel his body shake with it, exhausted in its wake. His legs tremble underneath him, and Shaw’s only half certain that they’ll hold steady from sheer fucking obstinance as he carefully unfolds himself from his hunch.

Christ, but he feels like he’s been pummeled by a truck.

No—in fact, he _had_ been pummeled by a truck, once upon a time, and it hadn’t felt as torturous as this.

Shaw’s familiar enough with _pain_. Has known it, intimately, for the majority of his life. It’s a bit of a given, in his line of work, and he’s never had much of a problem with that. He can hunker down and bear it with the best of them, clench his jaw and move along like a bullet in the shoulder’s more of an inconvenience than a trauma. It’s almost easy, at this point. Long ingrained habit.

But with his head swimming and his skull thumping and his gut _churning_, Shaw’s not all that sure that the _bear down and take it_ technique’s gonna cut it on this one.

He leans his shoulder against the grimy brick wall beside him, and takes a moment to regain his bearings. The waves, he notes, have been increasingly harder to predict. They were separated by hours, at first—but in the past few the time between had been inching closer together, at times striking back to back, less than seconds for reprieve. And he’s somewhat certain they’ve been steadily worsening; they’ve all been _fucking awful,_ but more recently each one leaves him feeling more and more like a dog’s chew toy: ragged and worn-down, with all the stuffing torn out and scattered across the ground.

He clutches at his stomach again. Wills himself not to vomit.

Curses himself when he fails that particular battle, and curls in half a second time to hurl at the cement below him. _Shaw_ knows that there’s nothing in his stomach to even bring up at this point, but his body doesn’t seem to care; he retches, and retches, and, apparently, for_ good fucking measure_, retches _again_, over and over, with uncontrollable, spasming heaves. The mouthful of bile that finally makes its way up and out is bitter, but the taste is practically a familiar friend by now. Shaw stares down at the tiny puddle of it, and just breathes.

His head gives another pointed, sharp stab of agony, and honestly, Deckard would love nothing more in this moment than to collapse to the ground and wallow in his fucking misery.

“Shit,” he hisses. He’s definitely dying.

But instead of the nice, good wallow Shaw strongly feels he damn well deserves by now, he slowly straightens himself up a second time. The movement tugs at the gash across his flank, and he hisses, clutching at the spot until the burn of it fades back into a duller sensation.

When he pulls his hand away from his gut, it’s sticky-wet and red.

_“Shit,”_ he mutters again, because that’s _Not Fucking Good_.

Shaw doesn’t have time to think about the spreading pool of blood against the dark fabric of his shirt, though. He’ll deal with it. Just—_later_.

The faint wail of a siren, deeper out in the city, echoes between the walls of the parking garage around him, and it throws him right back into the reality of the moment with a cutting sense of urgency.

He needs to leave—_immediately._

He glances up, careful to keep his face mostly hidden in the baggy hood of the jacket carelessly thrown over his head, and lets his eyes scan the tops of the surrounding pillars. Deckard spots the security camera easily; it’s pointed a bit to the right, but he knows he’s not lucky enough for it not to have caught at least half of the commotion from ten minutes prior. The three bleeding bodies scattered haphazardly across the ground aren’t exactly subtle, either.

The one five feet to his left breaks the quiet of the garage with a wet, gurgling cough.

He’s not certain if the other two are dead or just sleeping the sleep of the very unconscious, but either way, Shaw is sure that sticking around any longer to find out isn’t in his best interests. Between the inevitable appearance of a security guard, the steadily wailing police sirens growing louder and louder with each passing moment, and the definite likelihood that the three stooges had backup lurking somewhere in the wings—

His stomach lurches again, and Shaw ducks his head back down towards the floor to heave. Nothing comes of it, but the taste of acid sits heavy on his tongue anyways. He wipes a shaky hand across his chin and scowls.

Best not let any of the bastards find him convulsing in a puddle of his own sick.

Shaw pulls himself back up, and takes a few stumbling steps forward with a hope and a prayer that he doesn’t collapse to the ground underneath him. His car is—somewhere. On this level, at least, he thinks. His head feels muddled, throbbing with every beat of his racing heart, but he has enough awareness to drag himself in the direction that he has a faint memory of parking in the night before. His steps are stumbling, lurching things, and his arm drags roughly against the brick wall beside him in a clumsy attempt for support, but Shaw’s _determined_. Refuses to let his wobbly legs fold.

He can feel the inkling of a new swell of pain creep up and into his bones again, and that’s just. Bloody fucking _brilliant_, isn’t it. He doesn’t let it stop him, because he’s had worse—_so much worse,_ he tells himself firmly—even if he can’t remember where, or when, or _how_.

_Keep moving,_ he thinks. It’s a mantra and a prayer all in one.

Something drips from his nose. It’s warm, and thick, and trails down his lips to his chin in a steady dribble. Shaw reaches up to swipe at it in the same moment he darts out his tongue almost reflexively, and the sight of bright red blood on his fingertips matches the bitter taste of copper in his mouth.

Something about it strikes him as strange, as he stares down at the splash of red that drops to the concrete beneath him. Shaw knows he took a bit more of a beating than three deadbeat thugs really warranted, in the fight that left his opponents waylaid behind him, but—he doesn’t recall a hit to the face. No smack of a fist, no rough jabbing elbows to the nose.

Maybe his head’s just a touch more scrambled than he’d thought.

Either way, Shaw elects to ignore it, because acknowledging injuries has never really gotten him far in life. He tilts his head forward and pinches the bridge of his nose with one hand, the other still sliding aimlessly against the wall, and stubbornly continues his march forward. Tiny splatters of bright red mark his shuffling trail, dripping off the tip of his nose, but Shaw doesn’t—_can’t—_give a shit.

Later. All of this is a _later_ kind of problem.

His right knee nearly buckles, but he catches himself before it can topple him. Deckard pauses, takes a deep, shuddering breath, and braces himself with a grimace as pure, unadulterated_ pain_ sweeps its way back through him. The next wave—closer, this time. And _fuck_, but it hurts.

He takes a step forward, then another. Opens his eyes, and pushes through it, because truth be told, he’s always been a glutton for punishment, anyways.

He just… needs to keep moving.

————————

It had started, Shaw thinks, the night before.

He’d felt a bit warm, as he strolled out of the underground entrance to the club he’d spent the better part of the previous hour dismantling, and his body had been making the aches and pains of a good night’s work a tad more known than usual. Bit of a headache, bit of soreness in the meat of his arms and legs. Nothing too overbearing, though. Just apparent enough for him to take note—to think, maybe, that a lie-in the next day could be in order.

The club had been a dead end, after all. Two weeks in Colombia before this, pursuing the thin thread that his contacts had tossed him, had lead Shaw to the little establishment in LA, and, ultimately, to _bloody fucking nothing_. No new intel to pursue. No leads that needed a hasty follow-up. Just a band of the usual sniveling twats, without that elusive connection to Eteon he’d been hunting for.

A waste of his time, honestly.

So he’d driven back to his hotel, discarded his blood-sprinkled shirt and trousers atop the pile of war gear tossed lazily on the corner desk, and popped a few ibuprofen before turning down the temperature on the air conditioner as he’d settled into bed for the night. It was southern California—a touch of warmth in the dry, heated air wasn’t anything to think twice over, anyway. He wasn’t about to make a fuss of it.

Three hours later Shaw had awoken in a sweat, hurriedly stumbling to the loo, and vomited up every last ounce of the contents of his stomach.

The force of it sent the _delightful _pounding in his skull into a frenzied, violent rhythm that drove him back to hurling into the toilet, again and again, in a hellishly nauseating cycle.

It was like the punishment of some sort of god-awful hangover, without even the pleasure of a good drink beforehand to make it all worth the trouble.

He’d spent the next hour on his knees, bowing to the porcelain god, and cursing whatever meal had been responsible for it. Rotten, infested, _contaminated _American fare, Deckard was sure of it. His stomach roiled, and he ducked his head towards the bowl again.

Once the nausea had settled and the dry heaves had passed, Shaw had wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, drank a cupful of water to erase the taste of it, and shuffled back into the other room, letting himself fall back into sweat-soaked sheets. They’d felt disgusting against his still-damp, clammy skin, but he just couldn’t muster up the energy to care enough to change them. His joints ached—likely from kneeling in front of the toilet for the past hour, he’d thought—and his head throbbed, and Shaw just wanted to sleep off whatever the hell the likely undercooked food from the evening before had done to him.

A bit of rest would do it, he’d been convinced. It’d be gone by morning. Those types of bugs always were.

————————

It hadn’t been gone by morning. 

It had, if anything, been _worse_. Exponentially so.

After a restless night’s sleep of tossing and turning, curled into a miserable figure in the middle of his drenched, reeking sheets, Shaw had finally gotten sick enough of feeling like a dirty set of day-old gym clothes to drag himself to the shower. It took the last bits of energy his exhausted body could manage to scrounge together, but the plan felt worth it. He slumped into the tub, too bone-weary to keep himself standing, too tired to even shuck off his sleep wear, and let the water run over him.

Deckard tipped his head back against the wall and sighed, because _christ_, but that was good. The luke-warm water felt nearly icy in a way that was _bliss _against his skin.

_Fever,_ he thought dully. Must’ve been a hell of one, too, to leave him this wrung out. Shaw couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so ill.

Somalia, maybe. Malaria had been an experience he’d never wanted to repeat again.

The nausea was still swirling in his stomach by the time he lugged himself out of the bathroom and back towards the bed, trousers dripping water across the fancy hotel rug. He stripped himself, letting the sopping material lay where it dropped, and collapsed back against the mattress in a wet heap.

_Ugh. _The stink of sweat that wafted up at him was almost overwhelming. Deckard tried to ignore it, and curled himself up in the middle of the mattress. He shivered as the air conditioner kicked in, dragging like frigid fingers across his wet skin.

It was a good thing he’d booked the place for a few nights, he’d thought, burying his face into the pillow in misery, because he had no plans to move from the goddamn bed for a good week.

————————

That plan went tumbling right out the window once the pain started up that evening.

The first wave had been—bearable. A complete and utter torment, sure, but nothing Shaw couldn’t grit his teeth against, clutching tightly at the wrecked sheets beneath his fingers, body rigid in the throes of it. He’d endured. Let the feeling wash over him, and then sucked in a slow, steady breath of relief as it faded.

And then repeated the process a second, a third, a fucking _fourth fifth sixth_ time as it pulsed through him again and again and again.

_What the fuck_, he thought miserably.

After the ninth round of it, Deckard was half-ready to fling himself from the twelfth story window. What, he thought, caught up in a good heaping of self-pity, had he done to deserve this shit?

No—bad question. That answer was glaringly obvious. And extensive. Could fill pages, really.

With a slightly exaggerated groan, he let his stiff muscles relax back against the bed, and dragged his arm to lay across his brow in exhaustion.

A moment later, Shaw’s sluggish brain registered what it had just seen, and he jerked his forearm down to stare at it in incomprehension.

_What the fuck, _he thought again, because it felt worth repeating, as he blinked up at the sight of his own wrist.

Tiny, dark pinpricks dotted the length of it. They wrapped around his arm, trailing up to his elbow, bright red and dusky purple, like little bruises that couldn’t quite find a way to come together properly. Deckard stared at them, eyes playing a lazy game of connect the dots as they flicked from little spot to spot. It almost reminded him of the sort of marks a bit of rough play with handcuffs could leave behind, but even that didn’t quite fit.

He let his head roll to the side, skull thumping away as though to punish him for the movement, and found the same set of little blots snaking up his other arm.

He was mostly certain they hadn’t been there when he’d fallen asleep.

Probably not the best of signs.

Shaw wracked his brain—difficult, with the fever that was making his thoughts listless and floaty—for an explanation. A rash? Did rashes follow food poisoning? He couldn’t recall. Medical shit had never been his forte, unless you counted a steady hand for needlework.

The flu, maybe? Viruses could cause rashes, he knew that much; the memory of Owen, covered chest to toes in a layer of fine red bumps, nose running like a faucet and his tiny, chubby, childish face blotchy from fever, was vivid in Shaw’s mind. He couldn’t remember personally ever feeling this shite from a simple virus, but Shaw supposed there was a reason the news harped on about the danger of influenza. Maybe this was just a more vicious type of it—H1N1, or bird flu, or whatever the hell other strain-of-the-week was lurking around out there.

… perhaps, he’d thought, as the tenth wave of agony had taken that exact moment to make it’s presence _very fucking known_, it was time for a bit of a professional consultation.

There was a hospital a good thirty minutes from the hotel. Shaw remembered passing the sign for it on the highway, on his way back from the club. He hesitated over the thought, though, because—well. The last time he’d willingly entered a hospital had been for the sole purpose of slaughtering every last guard between himself and his comatose brother. Before that, it had been—years, maybe. Over a decade, definitely.

Deckard figured the risk may be worth it, though. He’d be in and out, and hopefully with a handful of medications that could flush whatever-the-fuck was wrong with him out of his system. Quick. Easy.

So Shaw rolled himself out of bed once the pain subsided, stumbling to his feet and dragging himself back into the loo, this time with the intent to make himself at least somewhat presentable. Best not tempt anymore suspicion from the front desk, after his earlier waltz through the lobby with flecks of blood up the side of his dress clothes. He snagged a shirt—clean, no bloodstains on that one—and a set of wrinkled trousers, dragging them on painstakingly as he shuffled his way in front of the mirror.

He stared at his reflection. Took in the big, purple bags under his eyes, the flush to his face. The sweat trickling from his forehead and down along the lines of his jaw.

Wondered, with the kind of cynical detachment that came part-and-parcel with the sensation of an icepick chipping away at the inside of one’s skull, when the last time he’d looked this fucking terrible was.

He reached out a hand to turn the sink on, and splash some water on his haggard-looking face—

—but the soft, dragging sound of a footstep on carpet had Deckard pausing.

A flicker of movement in the bathroom doorway sent Shaw flinging himself to the ground in the next moment, the mirror exploding above his head as a bullet shattered the center of it.

If that wasn’t just his luck: feeling half a foot into death’s doorway already, and someone tries to shove him the rest of the way through.

Shaw didn’t stop to think. Couldn’t, really, even if he wanted to. Instinct had him rolling, lunging up from the floor to barrel his shoulder into the gunman’s gut, tackling the man to the carpet in a single burst of movement.

His hands shot up to grapple with the other man, twisting the intruder’s wrist to avoid a bullet wound on top of the rest of his problems. Even as weak and worn down as he felt, Deckard found that his body still knew the moves: slam the gun-hand against the floor, knuckles to the bastard’s cheek once-twice-three times to stun him. Snatch the gun out of briefly limp fingers, flip it around, and pistol-whip the idiot to unconsciousness.

The man slumped to the ground underneath him. Shaw crouched over him, panting far more than he should’ve been for a simple seconds-long skirmish like that.

He glanced back into the bathroom, and stared at the starburst of cracks around the hole in the mirror.

“Jesus,” Shaw rasped, legs trembling beneath him. _Fuck_, but that had been close.

If he’d been half a second slower—if the fever and the shakes and all the rest of the utter _bullshit_ his body was throwing at him had slowed him anymore than it already was—

He didn’t think he’d ever been so grateful for adrenaline in his life. What a hell of a drug.

He didn’t have any more time to stop and consider the fact that Death had just skimmed over the top of his head, though. Someone would’ve heard the commotion; unfortunately, the hotel wasn’t some shitty little rest-stop at the edge of town, where a gunshot wouldn’t be reported until morning. No—the Hilton had higher standards than that.

The tattoo on the hitman’s wrist told Shaw exactly who’d had the bright idea to attempt to off him: stupid fucking drug-dealing _cunts_, from the club he’d stormed the night before. He had half a mind to go back and return the favor, if he hadn’t felt about ready to empty his stomach all over the front of the man underneath him. _Again_.

Later. He’d get payback, in _spades_, even, but—later.

So instead he pulled himself up by the bedside table, still breathing like he’d gone ten rounds instead of ten seconds, and tucked the gun into the back of his trousers. Less than a minute later Shaw was out the door, clumsily slipping down the stairs, daysack slung over his shoulder.

————————

In retrospect, Shaw supposed he should’ve expected the ambush in the parking garage.

Stupid fucking drug-dealing cunts they may have been, but even those types knew it took more than one subpar hireling to take down a shadow of his caliber. So when the first thug had slipped out from behind the car he’d paused to lean against, dizzy enough to feel the ground swooping up beneath him, Deckard’s stray thought of _you fucking idiot_ had been directed more at himself than anything else.

The fist that caught him in the ear sent Shaw’s head ringing like a bell. He reeled up against the hood of the sedan, momentarily shocked into a stupor by the blow, staring stupidly up at the rapidly approaching figure above him.

As if the already existing headache hadn’t been _enough_.

The metal bar that came swinging down after him a second later would’ve left a sizable crack in the front of his skull if reflex hadn’t kicked in, and had him rolling towards the bumper of the car. Shaw kicked his leg out on the way down, wrapping his ankle around the other man’s and _yanking_, determined to take the bastard with him.

It worked well enough. They both ended up on the floor, rolling across it and on top of each other like squabbling children, and Deckard cursed the weakness in his limbs that left his holds reedy and breakable. Normally, he’d have had the upperhand ages ago, but this—this wasn’t _working_.

Dirty tactics it was, then.

As they scrambled back to their feet, Deckard took the prime opportunity to send his knee slamming up into the fucker’s groin with all the force of righteous irritation he could muster.

Predictably, the man doubled over—and then collapsed, thudding to the ground, as Shaw swung the discarded pipe into the side of his face with a resounding _crack._

The man didn’t so much as twitch.

Down for the count, then. Thank fucking_ Christ—_

But Shaw was barely given a second to finish the thought, no less catch his breath, before the other two came barreling into the fray.

He didn’t catch sight of the knife until it was already right up on him, slashing for the gut. Shaw flung himself back, wide-eyed with surprise, but the move only half-saved him; the sting of the wound was faint, almost hidden behind his thudding pulse, the fight-or-flight rushing through his veins, but it was noticeably _there._

Deep enough to bleed, from the wet warmth he already felt clinging to his shirt.

He didn’t have time to stop and assess, though. The knife—big and overcompensating for _something,_ clearly—came whirling back towards him in a stab for his chest, and Shaw had to admit that the bastard was _fast_. Thug number three, big and brawling and fists gleaming with some sort of weapon that Shaw was too busy dodging to really catch more than a glimpse of, came swinging after the mercenary’s face from the other direction.

Rookie mistake. Shaw weaved between the two of them—more of a drunken stumble than his usual grace, if he was being honest with himself—and snagged Brawler’s shirt on his way, before using the man’s momentum to drag him straight into the path of the blade.

Big Boy went down with a choked-off wail, clutching at the brand new hole between his ribs.

Two down, Shaw thought, scrambling to lean up against the dented car at his side. The move gave him some distance. Breathing room.

And fucking hell, but did he need it.

Knife boy, blade recovered from his foul-up, bared his teeth at Shaw in a sneering grin. They were yellow and rotted and direly in need of a dental hygienist.

“Not lookin’ so hot, asshole,” he spat, as though that was supposed to be _witty_ or something, and he flipped the weapon skillfully between his fingers.

Shaw just curled his lip; he didn’t need some upstart with a cavity fetish to tell him how he _looked._ Certainly not when he could feel the ground swaying under his feet. 

The sod prowled forward carefully, assessingly, eyes darting for a weak point. And Deckard—

Fuck, but he could_ feel_ it. That all-consuming pain, slinking back up into his legs again, through his gut, racing down his arms.

One giant, glowing _weak point_. Like some big bloody target, smack dab over the center of his chest.

So instead of waiting for Meth Mouth to take advantage, he slipped his hand to the small of his back, tugged out the gun he’d tucked there, and in one smooth, lazy pull of the trigger, unceremoniously put an end to the whole mess of it.

Stupid crumpled to the ground with a wide-eyed look of shock in his eyes.

“Idiot,” Deckard muttered, stumbling back against the wall on unsteady, fawn-like legs.

Knives at a gun fight, and all that. What kind of _amateurs—_

Pain welled up like a flood, and Shaw groaned, tipping forward to lean over his own knees, and wheezed through the surge of it.

If nothing else, he thought wryly, grinding his teeth hard enough to crack them—if nothing else, it was good to know that even in the process of acutely dying, he was still capable of taking out the trash.

It was the last sensible thought he had for the next few minutes, before pain drowned out all the rest. 

————————

By some miracle, Shaw makes it to his car.

It takes a bit of fumbling with the key, what with the way his hands are shaking like a junkie two days into withdrawal, but he manages it. Even slides himself into the seat—though admittedly, it’s more of a semi-controlled fall than anything. He leans over the steering wheel, hands still sticky with half-dried blood as he clutches at it, and lets his forehead rest against the leather.

Shaw sits there for a moment, panting, and thinks.

He doesn’t know what to do next.

The hospital’s out. Between a body in his hotel room (if it’s still even there—Shaw hadn’t hit the bastard hard enough to kill, he knows that much) and three in the garage, there’s no doubt a manhunt’ll be underway once the police show their faces. That’s not normally much of a problem for him; coppers are laughably easy enough to dodge, compared to the types of people he usually finds himself dealing with. But now, torn up the way he is, head nearly spinning off his shoulders, legs and arms and all the rest of him quivering in exhaustion?

He doesn’t think he’s even strong enough to fight off a stray pomeranian, if one decided it was out for his blood.

Besides—cops weren’t the only ones that’d be out for him. He wasn’t about to let himself walk into that sort of trap.

There aren’t many other options. Hattie, maybe; but she’s been on a mission of her own for the past three days, and communications have been tricky. Besides, what was she going to do—teleport to fucking LA from the middle of London?

Mum and Owen were out for the same reason.

He doesn’t have any safehouses in this area. No hideaways to coop himself up in and ride out the storm. There’s always the option of a shitty little motel, one where questions wouldn’t be asked and assumptions of_ drugs_ and _withdrawal_ and _probably mugged in an alley_ would likely be made and ignored, but—

The gash in his side is still bleeding. A small, slow, occasional trickle of blood, maybe, but that was—not a good sign, he thinks. He presses his hand against the wound to provide some sort of pressure.

It doesn’t _seem_ deep enough to be a concern, really, when he prods at it hesitantly, swallowing back his grunt of pain. It shouldn’t, by all accounts, still be bleeding.

His nose had stopped, at least. That was something. His face may look like a murder scene, all dried blood across his lips and down his chin, but at least he didn’t have to worry about bleeding out with that one.

Shaw presses harder against the gash, and stares out the front window. The hood of the car swims in front of him.

There is… _someone, _if he really thinks about it.

Not an option he’d ever _think about_ in other circumstances, but.

Well.

He drums his trembling fingers against the steering wheel. Hesitates.

Shaw knows the address. Remembers it from the file he’d rifled through, sitting in a dark and quiet office in the middle of DSS, controlled fury in every tap of his fingers against the keyboard. Remembers memorizing the home’s digits, the street name—and just as soon discarding them as an option at the time, at the sight of _FAMILY: DAUGHTER - SAMANTHA HOBBS._

Luke Hobbs isn’t, wasn’t, and _never will be_ someone Shaw particularly _wants_ to rely on. Saving the world together was one thing. Having each other’s backs in a knock-down, drag-out, apocalypse-averting fight was natural.

Letting himself crawl to Hobbs’ doorstep, wounded and vulnerable and nearly delirious with fever, the world doubling and flip-flopping in front of his eyes—that was something else entirely.

… what the fuck else was he supposed to do, though?

It’s not like he needs to actually go into the man’s home. He’d just—park outside. Get a few hours of shut-eye in before the sun rose. Regain a bit of his strength. Sweat out the fever in a spot that no one would look for him, and be on his way before Hobbs even cracked his eyes open.

It didn’t have to be a _thing._

Shaw blinks away the fog in his vision. Chews on the option like a dog worrying a bone.

And then finally, defeatedly, turns the key in the ignition, and starts the engine with a quiet purr.

Decision made, he taps the address into his gps, and pulls the car out onto the road.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr username is deckard-shaw, if you're ever interested in seeing some of my other stuff. part 2 to come.


End file.
